Dead Man On Campus [1998] [VHS]

Well, it's a good idea--so good two separate films have used it, this one, Dead Man on Campus, and Dead Man's Curve. Dead Man on Campus mines more dark comedy out of the premise: two students at a prestigious university are flunking out. However, due to a provision in the school's charter, if they had a roommate who committed suicide, they'd both get straight As as a form of reparation for grief and trauma. So, to stay in school, they seek out the most depressed student on campus and transfer him into their three-person dorm room. Unfortunately, rather than satirising the real issues--academic narrow-mindedness, parental pressure, the obsessiveness of late adolescence--the movie is a compilation of frat-boy clichés and jokes that want to be in bad taste but are actually quite tame. The leads (Tom Everett Scott and Mark-Paul Gosselaar) are pleasant and the soundtrack (produced by the Dust Brothers) has some very hip selections, but after a snappy opening-credit sequence, the movie stumbles along, aimless and sluggish. Alyson Hannigan (American Pie, Willow in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer) has a small role and is her charming geeky self. --Bret Fetzer